The personal blog of Peter Lee a.k.a. "China Hand"... Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel, and an open book to those who read. You are welcome to contact China Matters at the address chinamatters --a-- prlee.org or follow me on twitter @chinahand.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Saudi Arabia Switches to Plan B for IS and Syria

From my ever interesting and amusing
twitter feed @chinahand, with some minor edits:

China
Matters crystal ball tells me:

1) Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia is switching from jihadi strategy to great power negotiations
in response to IS fiasco

2) KSA is
saying, "OK, we'll help clean up our IS mess, but Assad's gotta go.
Syria's a natural pickup for the Sunni side and belongs in KSA's sphere of
influence.”

4) As long
as Assad getting billions in financial support, military assistance from Iran,
he's not going anywhere. If Iran cuts off aid to Assad, he'll be out on the
first plane to Moscow or wherever.

5)
So I believe KSA is offering Iran peaceful coexistence in ME in return for
dumping Assad

6) and US
agreed to put Assad on table as part of Iran nuke deal. So after IS contained,
US wants Iran to support "political transition".

7) and
US/KSA/Iran all sing "kumbaya". Especially since KSA believes it will
be able to shoulder aside whatever hapless transitional govt is installed in
Syria and get their own people in.

8) If this
scenario plays out, would expect Israel to get nervous as KSA/Isr/US anti-Iran
bloc crumbles. Will certainly demand any new government in Syria be acceptable
to Israel (probably why it's now backing JAN). Wonder if it will try to upset
applecart w/ quick JAN regime change dash to Damascus to pre-empt deal w/ Iran
for transition.

Comment
from Moon of Alabama:

Interesting idea - but don't think that's the way supreme
leader does business -too dirty a deal

Back to
chinahand

@MoonofA agree. Iran the
only grownups in the room. But might consider modulating support for Assad in
return for rapprochement w/ US, coexistence
w/ KSA, commitment to Syria reconstruction.

But I
wonder if Israel would move first to queer the deal in any case.

Then KSA
could just shrug its shoulders and say, Hey too bad our deal with Iran didn’t
work out. Conspiratorial onion can be peeled:

KSA
playing nice, Israel doing the dirty, Assad gone, Iran angry and re-isolated,
US left holding its d*ck as seems to be usual case in ME.

If, as I’ve previously speculated,
Saudi Arabia formed a protective alliance with Israel to shield KSA from
America’s righteous post-9/11 wrath (and keep the notorious 28 pages bottled
up), letting Israel take the more conspicuous role in the anti-Assad tag team
would be expected.

At the same time, it’s not an Arab Spring, but there might a
Theocratic Autumn and a change in Saudi-Iranian relations, supporting the idea
that the Kingdom has decided to put its Wahabbi-Troskyite permanent global
revolution against the Shi’a on hold in order to pursue some regional power
horse-trading with Iran--especially since the US attempt at rapprochement with Iran seems to be gaining some momentum, in part thanks to the accurate perception that Iran is serious about doing something about IS, while Saudi Arabia is not.

Now, therefore, is not the time to bluster about the Iranian menace to Washington. Time for some united-front happy talk instead, and demonstrate to the United States that Saudi Arabia is capable of anti-IS vigor equivalent to what's coming out of Tehran.

In addition to a rather unprecedented meeting of the Saudi
and Iranian foreign ministers, Saudi Arabia was distinctly passive in its
response to a takeover of the capital of Yemen by a Shi’a force, the Houthis.

But coexisting with Iran apparently does not mean tolerating
Iran’s key ally/client Bashar al-Assad.It looks like Saudi Arabia has not changed its objectives, merely the
means of pursuing them.

As to the issue of what does Saudi Arabia care more about,
getting rid of Assad or reining in IS, the jury seems to be in.A Wall Street Journal backgrounder tells us
that KSA and its minions in the Gulf decided to promise the United States the
moon with regard to anti-IS support…as long as the US promised not to abandon
the anti-Assad crusade.

It "took months of
behind-the-scenes work by the U.S. and Arab leaders, who agreed on the need to
cooperate against Islamic State, but not how or when. The process gave the
Saudis leverage to extract a fresh U.S. commitment to beef up training for
rebels fighting Mr. Assad, whose demise the Saudis still see as a top priority."

The Saudis also agreed to foot most of the bill for the “Third
Force” of 5000 fighters that is supposed to be trained and led, I imagine, at
rather close quarters by the United States, and offer the prospect of a
capable, controlled force that will further US objectives in Syria, especially
if/when the US follows through and coordinates its operations inside Syria with
close US air support.

Hat tip, by the way, to Zero Hedge for stumping up for a WSJ
subscription and summarizing the key points for the beleaguered anti-imperialist forces.

Prince Bandar was in on the meeting with Secretary Kerry,
another indication that Saudi Arabia has not abandoned its indefatigable
campaign to evict Assad from Damascus even as the proxies for its previous
anti-Assad gambit wreak so much havoc in the Middle East that the US feels
compelled to step in and step up.

One might speculate that IS was a devilishly clever scheme
by Prince Bandar to force the United States to return to Riyadh and bargain for
KSA support in return for trying to put a leash on IS.

But I am of the school that Prince Bandar performed his
usual reverse Midas touch of turning chicken salad into chicken sh*t, and the
Kingdom is scrambling to make the best of his murderous incompetence.

2 comments:

How long would Hezbollah outlast an Assad-less Syria? Any deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia would have to include the survival of Hezbollah, but Saudi Arabia can't give sufficient guarantees to Iran that they will fulfil their side of any bargain because if Iran takes action against Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United States will protect the KSA.

How is this not an US-Saudi war against Syria? The "rebels" - or whatever you want to call them - would have never survived 14 days without massive outside support. Why is this no urgent topic for the UN? Isn't territorial integrity and the like a cornerstone of the supposed Western system of politics?